Sam Mwaka-karama
Initially
this article was written for World Press Freedom day – I had been thinking of
what to share on that fine day. Fine day because it reminds us especially we
Africans living on the mother continent; that freedom needs be guarded! Your
freedom is valid only as far as you were free to practice in whatever you did
without undue state control, all comer hindrances and worst; peddled malicious foreign ‘influences’ that
drag your thinking and actions contra to your legitimate African journey… was to me the sort of banter
to guard against.
In the
process of wanting that fairer moments, waiting for what befitting topical
moments that never came, I had shelved this article… and did not want to
publish its original version because [press freedom day had passed] amid too
much chaff and gamely repartee coming
off our parliament (with the four NRM rebel MPs) making the waters of debate
even murkier and dialectic with over simplification and gross misunderstanding…
the level of reason had suddenly dropped – this article would not blend but
instead stick-out or some newspaper editor friends of mine won’t run it either,
so I held back on my article, and later re-wrote it for my blog.
The wider
world media thinking was largely developed on the theory that the Press and the
media at large watch-dogged upon activities of the state; reported on
political, economic, security and generally national issues and happenings with
the premise that the State was the leading villainous player and often the
culprit… the lopsided debate on ‘freedom of the press’ would therefore be
therein anchored. It is syndicated reason; press freedom was from the state -
full stop.
However
little was often considered when the press encountered hindrances that weren’t
exactly state triggered – there are organizations for example that often
threaten or even take the press or individual members of the press to court, or
even dish-out covert silent sub-terrarium punishment to journalists and
editors; or taking advantage of the ‘Libel’ legislature to subdue press
objectivity or using other sinister covert means. The difficulty and
deprivation of individual pressmen often too, emanate from the free corporate
world.
In Uganda
this has reached a point where the press is largely endowed with everything tilted
to rubbishing the state and government, while creating high-profile imagery of
the largely foreign organizations in play: my typical example is; the Oil companies
that have been on the front pages of Uganda’s newspapers like Tallow, were
still respectably nibbled by the press… even as they [talked of then apologized]
for ‘attempting to induce’ a whole presidency for a token… this though was the
only time a little bit of teeth showed from the Ugandan press towards a
corporate – a softly little bit of teeth – not the sort our press offensive
that often chewed-up the state!
What I believe
is in the stoical horizon though is the ‘menacing and growling’ of the Neo-Imperial
types impatiently waiting for the older generation Africans to depart: imagine the Mandelas, Mugabes, Musevenis, and
Kagames generation of African leaders gone… the younger generation of our sons
and daughters obviously won’t manage! At least the stakes are getting stacked
too-high against younger generation leadership…
We the older
generation now mellowing have created
room for the imperialists in our countries and these fellows love chaos,
challenges and wrangle – it is already
evident for example that the many-many NGOs focused on child-everything are
here to develop all these “Watotos” for their future control of Africa.
A much larger
area of the future of Africa is already occupied by an infant generation they
have created out of Africa’s war displacements, orphans, and disadvantaged they
have already picked and established contact with... I don’t want to talk about
the ones they are preempting; ‘nodding disease’ types and the premature
departed who are all victims of queer-ism and devious
sex-clinico-mal-practices. Even the Viagra teenage [emergency] red-sex-pest-stampede…
We were
celebrating ‘World Press Freedom’ and we were all of the thinking that the
freedom was ‘all about love’ – but then
more and more that ‘love’ seem alien even remote; either it is love of religion
[God], love in the corporate sense [which is corrosive and often corruptible]
or love of imported views and theories. It is not! It is all about objectivity
and owning one’s own mind, and not selling your soul.
Being
yourself. Respecting foreigners at harms-length. Jealously guarding your
economy and good institutions and generally being aware and on-guard… much as
the Walk-to-Work and other elements of the greater reform agenda battled the
teargas canisters [for example] – it was wiser to go it several steps shorter
than the levels of the Arab Springs. We are Ugandans and we do have our own
characteristics – there is a point over which we won’t go on our streets.
Now barely
two years down the road… from spring one, the sudden removal of Mohammad Morsi
in Egypt so soon after his election confirms that ‘spring revolution’ usurps
national power once and for all – the spring-crowd will stone their way into
removing any leaders after leaders - once it succeeds a country becomes
paralyzed and permanently vulnerable. That crowd is the ultimate mob – whatever
it’s religious, political or economic group thinking - its actions once
established will recur, again and again. Look at Egypt now [July 2013], so soon
after the first spring, the mob came back and ejected Morsi.
I was
recently walking into the Oasis Mall in Kampala – and there was a lone white
man about 36 seated with African Ugandan kids; one boy and three girls (12-14/15)
– everything about the children was village, actually up country village.
Shortly, a waiter arrived with massive plates of grilled chicken and chips, and
smiling she looked plain stricken placing the plates on table: to me her point
of embarrassment was; these were not the usual children of well-to-do Kampalans
- these kids were plain and very much village.
In the 1970s/80s
– white Europeans and American tourists did the same in the [Tourist Marrakesh
markets] of North Africa. The Marrakesh Market kids are energetic young men
today, they are the brothers or other groups – but a child impressed at an
early age won’t ever forget… is this another psychological element of
Neo-Imperialism? Are we seeing a future being snatched away – and actually we
are aiding the process…?
The Author is an Independent Thinker, Writer and Blogger
mwakarama@gmail.com
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